Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
The present invention relates to a signaling system including a signaling program and an accompanying reinforcement system, which, when working together, will improve cognitive performance and intelligence in a human being, and which can be used for the improvement of cognition and intelligence in human beings in general, and for the treatment of inherent or acquired mental deficiency, mental degeneration associated with senility, Alzheimer""s disease, dyslexia, acalculia, and similar conditions in particular. This system is based on a specific model of neural representation, e.g., xe2x80x98billboard modelxe2x80x99, which sees percepts or concepts as images put up on a neural network composed of interconnected neurons. The present invention uses a sequence of control signals to direct and regulate the chunking behavior and percentage of active neurons in the network, periodically changing the chunk size and number of chunks and percent neurons xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d, thus reducing internal noise in neural representation, and reducing error rate (ER) and response time (RT). In one embodiment of the present invention, the signaling program is a Computerized Auditory Program (CAP) that includes a sequence of computer generated sound signals and verbal signals as the control signals mentioned above. In addition, the present invention uses an accompanying reinforcement system that gives a person periodically occurring vibratory-, visual-, auditory-, or other types of stimulus pulses to maintain the effects of signaling program over time.
It is a well documented fact that efficiency of cognitive performance, as measured in response time (RT) and error rate (ER), is closely related to measures of intelligence. Speed of information processing, measured in terms of response time (RT in performance of tasks involving perception and memory, is related to general intelligence and to gains in mental test performance over time in younger people. In fact some measures of intelligence are based on the speed of information processing. Evidence from studies of the changes in cognitive performance seen in aging population suggests that the efficiency of processing is an important factor contributing to age-related differences in working memory. Differences in efficiency of information processing will be reflected directly in fluid intelligence, which represents the acquisition of new information, or the grasping of new relations and abstractions regarding known information, and their effects will cumulate over time to result in different measures of crystallized intelligence, which represents the accumulation of knowledge over life span of the individual and is measured, for example, in tests of vocabulary, of general information, and of achievement. It has been proposed that a very low level psychophysical measure, inspection time, may provide us with insights into the fundamental nature of intelligence. The basic idea is that individual differences in intelligence may derive, in part, from differences in rate of intake and processing of very simple stimulus information. In special conditions such as dyslexia (impaired ability to read), acalculia (difficulty with arithmetic operations), mental deficiency, senile dementia, Alzheimer""s disease, etc., efficiency of information processing is of crucial importance and sometimes will have immediate, even critical consequences. Any methods that would improve cognitive performance could be called treatment for these conditions in the truest sense of the word. Furthermore, such methods could improve human intelligence, which is based on, crystallized from, and manifested in different types of cognitive performance.
There has been extensive neuropsychological study of the effects of factors that deteriorate cognitive performance as measured with response time (RT) and error rate (ER), e.g. math anxiety, dual-task, psychological refractory period manipulation, aging, Alzheimer""s disease, dyslexia, etc.
The relationship between cognitive performance and intelligence is illustrated in a special condition called math anxiety. Highly math anxious people tend to have their anxiety aroused when doing tasks involving numbers, their attention is turned to intrusive thoughts and worry, and there is an on-line reduction in the available working memory capacity, resulting in a longer reaction time (RT) and higher error rate (ER), especially in computations of multi-column numbers involving carrying or borrowing operations. These people tend to choose less courses involving math in school, and they are less competent with math, compared to people who are less math anxious.
In dual task conditions, a person performing two cognitive tasks simultaneously show higher RT and ER values than that obtained from single task performance.
In tests involving psychological refractory period method, two stimuli are presented one after the other in quick succession, so that the refractory period following the response to the first stimulus will adversely affect the response to the second stimulus in terms of RT and ER.
In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD), the information processing efficiency is impaired. Treatment with psychostimulants can only produce short-term benefits. Since the present invention does not involve drugs, and its effects can be maintained over a long period of time without side effects, it can be used as an effective treatment for ADHD. People with other types of mental problems such as autism and schizophrenia can also be treated with the present invention.
Compared to younger people, older people, for example over 60 years of age, show higher RT and ER in cognitive tasks, such as mental arithmetic or word or letter processing, and these changes have been attributed to increased internal noise, or neural noise, which can be thought of as perturbation of visual or perceptual features, resulting in increased errors (ER) and need for rechecking, hence longer RT.
apart from genetic factors, ethnic and social-class differences and home environmental factors all contribute to observed IQ differences. A check list, called Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME), has been developed for gathering information about the quality of children""s home lives. Several factors have been reported to be linked with mental development. In infancy, organization of the physical environment and variety in daily stimulation show strongest relationships with mental test scores. During the preschool years, warmth, stimulation of language and academic behavior, and provision of appropriate play materials are the best predictors. For economically disadvantaged preschoolers, Project. Head Start was initiated by the federal government in 1965, and is still a mechanism for early intervention today. But a consistent finding of research on Head Start and other preschool intervention is that almost all children experience an eventual washout effect. In other words, improvements in IQ and achievement do not last for more than a few years.
Previous inventions intended to affect human consciousness or behavior include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,782,006 to Symmes et al. shows a means and a method for providing audio and electrical stimuli to an individual to build an aversion to undesirable habits.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,516 to Meland et al. provides an apparatus for the electrophysiological stimulation of a patient for creating an analgesic condition in the patient to induce sleep, treat psychosomatic disorders, and to aid in the induction of electrohypnosis and altered states of consciousness.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,502 to Gorges discloses a device for relaxing, stimulating and/or driving brain wave form function in a human subject.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,323 to Spector is a biofeedback system to train an exerciser while he carries out athletic activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,281 to Gavish describes an apparatus and a method for monitoring and modulating biorhythmic activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,810 to Skille et al. describes an apparatus and a method for providing therapeutic audio and vibratory stimulation to an individual.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,322 to Weathers describes a psychotherapy apparatus and method that provides treating of an undesirable emotional arousal of a patient through coordinated and controlled presentation of visual and auditory stimuli to the patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,304,112 to Mrklas et al. describes an integrated stress reduction system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,488 to Gozlan et al. discloses a system for providing audio and tactile stimulation to a subject to improve his alertness.
There has been no method that could directly improve efficiency of cognitive performance in terms of response time (RT) and error rate (ER) through a reduction of internal noise in the neural representation in the central nervous system. The present invention, a signaling system for the improvement of human cognitive performance and intelligence, is the first successful method. In a recent study on 40 older and 40 younger adults, the present invention was tested in an experimentxe2x80x94control design, and was found to improve the performance of mental multiplication. The present invention had main effects in reducing RT, and interacted with age and factors of problem difficulty in predicting both RT and ER. In each case, the present invention offset effects of old age and problem difficulty. In other tasks, such as letter match (to decide if two letters presented on a computer screen is the same or different) and lexical decision (to decide if a string of letters is a true English word), the present invention also reduced RT and ER.
It is an object of the invention to program the working of a human brain by means of a signaling program, which is a combination of a sequence of signals and verbal instructions and signals, and further which, when stored in a person""s long term memory, will be recalled as a sequence of control signals that will direct the working of the person""s mind in a predetermined sequence of steps, periodically changing the chunk size and number of chunks and percent neurons xe2x80x9cOnxe2x80x9d in the neural network for representation, thus reducing internal noise, resulting in lower error rate (ER) and shorter response time (RT);
A second object of the invention is to maintain and renew the memory and effects of the signaling program over time after the actual presentation of the signaling program to a person has stopped through a reinforcement system, which includes a sequence of stimulus pulses that are initially associated with the signaling program through time-correlated presentation and are subsequently presented at certain intervals in time that are correlated with the signaling program.